Inside the store amidst the sea of glistening crystals placed safely in their cushioned little boxes the shout of Ru Shi came and went with no response. Instead arguing could clearly be heard, more aptly put, it was the dressing down of a century being laid by the many attendants of the shop to the knights that had come barging in during open hours and begun beating up a hostage.

“You come here and disturb business.”

“Who do you think you are?! Earthlings!”

“Get this oaf out of the store and clean up the blood! Deal with your business elsewhere!”

“Are you listening you foul faced BEAST!” Berated the clerks. Yet the captain of said knights was not listening. He kept on punching, relentlessly hammering his fists on Ru Feng’s face. Bruises, swells grew on his chiseled face. His brow was cut, blood washed half his face, painted his clothes and dripped to the floor around him.

Xerxes, who had been standing next to his captain so far, not moving, smiled from inside his helmet. He disengaged from the group of enraged knights and spoke up.

“I am very sorry for this, esteemed cultivators. Captain can’t help but be angry at this direct humiliation to your training and support done by this child, who through his efforts took from within our grasp the traitor. One with all the Information of the Seal.”

“Information on the Seal?! Impossible! How did he learn of it?!” Shouted a very old man, looking older than the ancients themselves, he had been silent till now.

“He is the failed brother of the Crystal Maiden. He had been obedient up until recently when he started digging around, saying he had woken up to the horrid crimes he had committed under the name of his sister, of their religion, a real idiot if you ask me. That traitor had only now gained his freedom and yet he’s been brought back to us, held by the young woman outside. If I can make the exchange the trouble will go away. The sooner we get the Traitor back, the sooner we’ll be out of your way, and cease this disturbance. Honored Elder.” Xerxes spoke non stop, he had knelt in front of the shop clerks, he never looked at their eyes and showed complete submission but his back was straight and his words flowed freely.

“Deal with it then.” A voice so ancient and elegant it made the withered old clerk look like a baby ordered.. From the back of the long rows of shelves with a frowning young man only a step behind him, came a withering old man with eyes that shone like stars and a mustache that writhed as if alive, white and long and slick. Shining all the way to the tips of his hard leather moccasins.

“No.” The young man spoke, pointing to one of the many women on his entourage, who filed in pairs behind him. “You’ll go. Make it quiet again.”

“Right away master.” The fairy, untouched by nature, shining with youthful beauty dressed in silver green that glittered like the gems around her bowed to the waist and obeyed.

At the same time the Heavenly Beast Sect’s Patrol had caught up. The lot of them charged through the alley and into the street, eyes locked onto Atlas and Ru Shi, they missed Carius completely, his fearful shivers stopped, his eyes sharpened to a straight line, a single point. He lunged forth, his fingers snapping a hair thin needle into his neck. He made to move, the poison in the needle enough to kill a grown man a few times over. Yet the man did not fall. “HEY!” He shouted, turned around and grabbed onto Carius’ head. He roared, his voice twisting to dark and cold depths and threw Carius over his companions and into the middle of the street.

Atlas who had just reached Ru Shi, was shaken, his head snapped back. Shock painted his features.

“You even went as far to try and attack us…. This… You will never see the end of it, Scum!” Shouted the person Carius attacked. Dark brown hear grew from his neck and chest, his palms morphed into paws with black deadly claws extending from them. He trundled forward, feet growing wide and furry, bursting through his shoes. “You’re DEAD!” The group charged forward.

Yet right at that moment the door of the shop opened and out came the refined beauty. She spread out her hands, splayed open her fingers. “This! This is your punishment for angering the young master!” She screamed in a melodic voice, like the call of a canary.

The sky above her warped and morphed into a dark cloud, a jet black spear with curved engravings of melted, shining, emerald spawned from thin air. And after that, in quick succession, a near transparent army of copies spawned all around the group, and as the young woman brought her hands in, they vibrated in anticipation, she clutched her fists, they dropped. Lightning fast they cut through the distance, their barrage of relentless power, unstoppable piercing force, scorched the air it touched.

Dust clouds blew up, and the pristine cobble path, of a blue tint shattered, exploding into thousands of pieces, deep fissures forming in the street.

The attack stopped and silence reigned. With a swipe of her hand, the murder fairy plucked the dust away. Her eyes shining with blue sparks of black and green as she peered at her handiwork.

Atlas was holding onto Ru Shi who was holding onto Jean in turn, all of them bleeding, injured yet not dead. Hands trembled and knives rattled on the ground. The most deadly attacks had been parried, yet their clothes were torn, their limbs bloody. Carius was doing much better off. The poison may have acted slower, because he hadn’t been a mere man, but he died still, and Carius slithered under the body at the last second. The tough hide did well to protect him.

The rest of the policemen, bleeding from wounds of their own only saw red. “WHAT are you doing woman!? Do you think you’re going to get away with this? Is everyone today trying to test the wrath of the Beast Cultivators?” Screamed a man morphed into a black maned lion. His face froze as the young man strolled out of the glass door of the Heavenly Mirage.

“No. She will get away with it small man. And that is because she belongs to the Chen Clan. She belongs to me. Instead what will happen. Is you will shut up, because I have heard enough bullshit for the day, and then, you’ll clean up this mess. A mess which you are responsible for. If you can at least do this correctly, I will not be forced to have a word with your superiors.” The rest of his entourage followed the Young Master, the shop manager and his clerks only a servile step behind. Xerxes simply stayed under the door frame. He giggled in his helmet, only for his ears. Only a mere viewer.

“And you.” Young Master Chen turned to the manager of the Heavenly Mirage. “Your décor is poor, your items boring, not even the best quality Crystals I can get from your establishments in the city. Your service utterly horrible, and with your inability to provide entertainment, or flare, those of the class just below mine will never pay you any attention. In general the shop you have built in this extremely luxurious spot my Clan has afforded you is disappointing. And today’s events were handled so weakly that my whole experience was ruined. I will not be coming back any time soon. I hope though, for your pitiful sake of course, to be better prepared to handle the happening of mortals and whatever else in the future. Instead of facilitating the torture of a man in the middle of the shop and arguing about it.”

{TANG!} With a snap of his fingers the many ethereal women around him moved. They brought whistles hanging on their thin, delicate necks, up to their lips. A silent cry bloomed and in only a few seconds an enormous carriage being dragged through the air by a dozen jade colored horses galloped, spiraling, from the sky. Young Master Chen was on it with a hop as light as a step, and they were off.

Lost in between the enormous buildings that made up Eternal City. The old, near molding, manager of the Heavenly Mirage was shaking from anger. He took deep breaths to try and bring calm to his worn heart. His bloodshot eyes shot at the real cause of this mess.

“Shit!” Carius pushed the dead half bear - half man away, clambered up.

Ru Shi did not bother responding, she simply stared up at the old man, Jean in hand. Her eyes saw the Cultivation technique forming in the Old man’s hands. She could smell the Qi moving to his will, taking on the flavor of his attack. It was bitter with a hint of copper, yet a clean, sharp, smell stuck out like grated ginger. It was brewing and twisting, and it hinted at her death served in a platter.

Yet right at that moment four cubes tumbled into the scene, they clattered and rocked on the hard stone. Small purple and silver cubes with small opening on all their sides. They rolled to stillness. Lodged in the fissures and breaks in the pavement, and then not even a second later smoke of purple, blue, and green exploded from them, wildly, rapidly. Foul smells spread from the cubes and all cringed, covered their noses as coughs barked out of their throats, even he manager who had tears and snot running down his face and into his silky smooth mustache. He along with the rest lost balance as their heads turned red, their nails digging and clawing at their throats as they coughed black filth from their mouths and lungs.

Without delay Atlas and Carius had been pulled by unknowns, and where running out of the smoke. While another figure popped up behind Ru Shi and grabbed Jean, prompting her to run as well. Yet the Old manager did not just let them go. He forced his technique into existence. The tips of his fingers were cut open and from inside a wall of mirror crystal, the sheen of metal, carved itself straight into existence and grew. And from the skies above two massive icebergs of crystal began falling to the ground.

“We’ll Meet you on the other side!” The young voice of the person carrying Jean sounded out before the three sided attack landed. Ru Shi flicked her wrist and a blood marked talisman flew true through the smog and planted itself on the stores glass, before she let herself be pulled out of the way by the young man. A wall rose up, cutting the street in half from the managers fingers and the two deadly edged crystal spears crashed down. They thundered, spreading smog and dust further into the alleys and corners of the neighborhood. The screeching sound of metal on metal brought the spectacle watchers to their knees as the two groups now split up used the billowing plumes as cover.

The young man brought Ru Shi through alleys deep in the city before stopping next to a manhole in a unassuming corner. He dropped Jean and bent over to pull it open.

“Stop. We won’t be going down there. Guide us around the city till we are chased no longer. Then you’ll show me the way back and leave. I’ll trade him in and be done.” Ru Shi spoke.

“I won’t do that, miss. Actually. Shouldn’t you be thanking me for saving your life back there.” The Young man did not even stop to consider.

“I’ll kill him if you don’t. Trade his body for a favor. That’ll work. I will have done their job for them and you will have his blood on your hands.” Ru Shi pressured.

Jean said nothing. All this time staying awake and alive through sheer luck, or a stubborn persistence to life. He didn’t really know at this point.

“You…. You’re kidding right?” The Young teen stopped removing the cover and looked back over his shoulder. His face young, pale, black hair and eyes, a button nose, sharp brows. Protected under a thing transparent sheet connected with glowing glyphs and power to the headset he wore, which bore similar markings and runes as it run all over his clothing from neck to boots.

“I don’t think she’s kidding kid.” Ru Shi, the young teen and the near crippled Jean all turned around to look at the uniformed man resting with his elbow on the wall staring at them through the smoke of his freshly lit cigarette.

“Who the fuck are you?!” Said all of them in unison.

~~~~~~~~

Back with the other group, Atlas and Carius had found themselves sliding through a black tube at break neck speeds. Minutes later they popped out the other end of the twisting turning darkness to a soft light. Adrenaline pumped in their brain from the biggest thrill ride of their lives on a large, feathery mattress only for them to spill down it to a hard wood floor, dark polished planks, long and wide.

Disoriented and sick in the stomach Atlas stood up on all fours at first before grabbing the hand offered to him, gloved with black leather, a circular rune of purple and red shone in the middle of its palm. He looked around only to have another dizzy spell. A city submerged in eternal night sprawled out like a series of hornet hives on the other side of the coin that was this alternate world, the Eternal City. Spikes jutting out to the abyss of night, away from gravity.

This city came to life with light and color after his last dizzy spell subsided. As thousands upon thousands of children played over large fish catching nets with all their friends just a small cut and mishap away from falling into the endless blackness under them.

“Welcome to the Undercity you two. The Dark belly of the Eternal City, the one and only under the Sun. I am Al-Sen and you’re lucky all this mess you got into happened where it did and when it did. Otherwise, you were all dead, no questions asked.” A deep womanly voice came from behind the transparent mask. She wore it tightly on her head through straps wrapping around her head, which in turn were being held in place by a special kind of cloth that covered all the back of her head and neck, showing no skin to the world, or air.

Her garb dark, yet glittered with runes that shone with Qi, harnessed, controlled. Atlas could see the difference easily, it was refined to a degree he could not imagine.

“Glad to be here then, thanks for inviting? Us.” He responded, not much looking at her eyes. His vision turning once more to the wondrous Undercity before him.