“Lady, please calm down, no one here has any intention of harming you.”, the dragon faintly moved its jaw as it spoke. It’s long whiskers that looked similar to the one’s of a carp coiled in the air. It was a surreal sight, certainly crazy enough to make you question your own sanity.

Saji did not stop her shrill cry, instead it became even more piercing and annoying.

The god called Ji frowned a little.

“This reaction is more then I anticipated.”, despite his frown it was obvious that he found the situation to be hilarious.

Saji’s eyes darted around. The dragon was one thing, but the other mind-blowing creatures behind it were in no way better. There was a buddha, calmly drinking his tea while observing her with gentle, curious eyes. His wide orange robe did little to hide his astonishingly muscular body.

This seriously was no buddha anyone would want to start a fight with!

Next to the buddha sat a small person, reminding her of a gnome. His face was unquestionably ugly with deep wrinkles and disproportionate features. His long-curved nose only deepened the impression of an exceptionally ugly face

Lastly there was an obese female with ridiculously expensive clothing. Gold and silver seemed to be little more then dirt in her eyes as she was clad in a ridiculous amount of jewelry. Unlike the other two Saji couldn’t put her into a distinct category.

Every single being in this pub was clearly out of the ordinary and the fact that those three figures had seemed like ordinary customers to her just a moment ago only served to testify that fact.

She had absolutely no intention of staying here.

Her long cry abruptly stopped, and she whirled around. A short dash and she had reached the door. Before anyone could do anything, she had opened the door and stepped outside. Her vision blurred for a moment.

There was noise.

Millions of voices, some deep others high. Piercing and gentle, whispering or roaring. They all came together to form a symphony of voices that filled the air and enlivened it with vibrant spirit.

Thousands of languages came together in this unexpected and yet strangely familiar piece of music. They merged and emerged from the sea of other words, they refined themselves until in the end they were the same and yet different.

Hundreds of sounds filled the air, some loud, others quiet. Steps on the hard ground, the sound of fabric fluttering in the wind, doors that opened and doors that closed. There was no way to identify each and every of that sounds and yet every last of them was a distinct part of what she could hear.

Her eyes focused.

There were lights. Billions of them, in every imageable color. They blotted out the sky, filled the vision with their unparalleled might.

Some came from the millions of windows, others from the thousands of display windows that belonged to the unending number of shops. Hundreds of millions of colorful advertisements seemed to try to outcompete each other in terms of brightness and color. They filled everything that was no window or door, there was nothing that did not have the name of some foreign company or shop on it.

This was not the street Saji had come from.

It seemed similar, but the difference between both was almost unimageable.

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If one was earth,

The other one was certainly the heaven!

“Sorry but I couldn’t let you go this easily.”

A voice suddenly came from behind her.

But Saji did not turn around. Her eyes were glued on the sight in front of her.

She was on one side of a long street. As far as she could see there was an unending line of houses reached towards the horizon. Her eyes wandered up and she saw the facades of the houses reached high up into the dark night sky. Hundreds of meters tall, high enough to reach even the sky, they lined the street in every shape and form.

There was a Chinese pagoda with at least four hundred stories, bright lights shining from every single of it’s white paper windows. Despite it’s traditional and archaic look there were hundreds of glowing neon signs advertising for the hundreds of restaurants inside of it.

On the other side of the street was a grey building. Like a wall it filled her view. Only unlike a wall it too was filled with small windows and an unimaginable number of advertisements.

Buildings like this and others in every imaginable style lined the street and filled it with their unending flood of colors.

On the multiple hundred meter wide street tens of thousands of creatures walked around minding their own business.

White foxes walked on two legs as they ate meat skewers from a nearby stall. A tree flouted along the street, an old face on it’s wrinkled bark talking with a young golden dragon. An immortal descended from the sky, walking on the air as if it was a staircase, and disappeared into a coffee shop only to come out with a paper cup filled with hot coffee.

It was difficult to describe, but the world in front of Saji was too unimageable to be unreal. It was too unreal to be an illusion.

Without even questioning it Saji had already confirmed that what she saw was the truth and not some kind of crazy hallucination.

“Lady?”, the voice once again spoke.

Finally, Saji was able to avert her eyes from the scenery in front of her. She turned towards the voice. It was the ‘owner of the pub’, the bartender who clamed to be a god. From what she had heard from the dragon he seemed to be called Ji.

“…Where am I?”, after a moment Saji asked.

Ji seemed to have expected the question.

“City of gods, the city of eternal night, City of a milliard opportunities, City of a billion names.”, he listed a couple of names.

“This city has as many names to it as there are beings living inside of it and it is up to you how you want to call it. What is important is that this is a city of gods, spirits and demons. Everything you heard about but never experienced, everything that you could seek, is located somewhere within the boundaries of this city.”, his words seemed to contain some sort of attraction as they made Saji feel more and more excited the more the heard.

Saji was quiet for some time.

“You said it wouldn’t be easy for me to leave?”, she asked.

“How cloud it be? You are my guest and I want to show you a lot of thing before I can allow you to go.”, The same friendly smile remained on Ji’s face. Despite that his words were rather despotic. It made his smile feel more like a mask then an expression of his true feelings.

Despite that Saji did not feel that the smile was repulsive. It was like a beautifully painted work of art. Something that was supposed to sooth the minds of others without carrying any evil intentions. This young god did not show his true face and hid behind the mask of a friendly smile. But somehow Saji knew that it wasn’t because he had any evil intentions.

At first Saji did not know what to respond. She did not know what to do. In fact, right now she knew nothing.

Yet for some reason she couldn’t help but smile. It was a genuine smile, no mask, but instead her true face.

This was a world she didn’t choose to enter. Some crazy god abducted her out of a whim and introduced her into this crazy reality without leaving her any freedom in the matter.

Yet it was exciting.

She knew that from this moment on everything would change for her. There was no telling what would happen, she did not know what she might encounter in this magical world that had suddenly opened itself to her.

She only knew that from this moment on, everything would change and that it would keep changing for an indefinite amount of time, maybe even forever.

“Then show me, oh mighty God Ji, just what wonders are hidden within this city!”, her bright voice reached Ji’ and merged into the endless sea that was this city.

For some reason Ji’s expression changed for a moment. Saji did not seem like a young woman that had been brought into an unfamiliar world. In this moment she was like a fish that had returned to the water after living her live on land.

She really wasn’t what he had expected.

And that made it even more exciting!

A bright smile appeared at Ji’s mouth and a strange light shone in his eyes as he made an mannered bow. This time it was no mask and his elegant politeness was no show.

He was the owner of the pub ‘A Dragon’s Dream’.

He was a young god who had lived for multiple centuries.

He was Ji!

“It will be my honor!”, his smile was genuine and warm.