A Warm Welcome

After Azemo pushed the button a white light surrounded him and he began to rise towards the city. As he went up Azemo had the perfect opportunity to look at the magnificent view. Or it felt like there should be a beautiful view, but all Azemo saw was the dull boring landscape of the desert.

Azemo soon lost interest in looking at the scenery and instead turned his attention to the city. Even from the underneath Azemo was impressed by its sheer scale. The floating city was easily three times the size of Zenath, a city with a population of well over a hundred thousand.

As Azemo quickly drew closer to the city he began to see street lights and hear the sound of movement.

"You should probably use Incognito." The orb spoke up quickly like it had just remembered something.

"Okay, do you want to tell me why?"

The Soul Essence ignored him before saying. "You should probably use it on the monster cubs as well."

The twins were quickly turned into their house cat forms while Azemo became a very boring looking human.

Azemo transformed just in time as his ascent ended on a large dock near the edge of the city. The light stopped pulling him up and Azemo stepped onto the dock getting his first real look of the city.

It was a very beautiful city. Not because everything was pristine and decorated, there were unpainted buildings and odd metal machines all over. But the beauty came from how everything clearly had its place. Nothing seemed to stick out giving the entire city a seamless look. It was like a massive piece of finely tuned machinery.

"Let me confirm your residency badge please." A man in a uniform spoke to the awestruck Azemo, cities always seemed to amaze him.

Wordlessly Azemo handed over the badge and the uniformed man took one look before handing it back. Azemo now looked around to see that other people were on the dock being checked by men in uniforms. The fact that no females were in uniforms caught Azemo's attention before the man in front of him spoke up again.

"There is a curfew and it has already passed so please hurry to your abode. If someone stops you just show them your badge, it is marked so that it shows that you just arrived."

"Thank you." Azemo left before the man could talk anymore because the man was somewhat annoying with a high pitched nasally voice. The man also gave off an aura of strictness, it seemed like the city was extremely focused on the law.

Azemo walked towards his residency, the badge had a handy feature that helped him locate the way to his room. On the way Azemo did some window shopping. The stores were all closed, curfew and all that, but Azemo vision was good enough to see inside.

The impression Azemo got as he walked past a food store was that everything was more expensive. Something that might have cost two brown coins on the ground cost seven up in the sky.

The stores did not look very dilapidated so they obviously got business. 'I guess people are just paying for convenience.' It seemed like people would avoid the ground at all costs or they just did not like wasting the time it took to leave the sky city.

Azemo continued through the shopping district and made it to the housing area. The first thing Azemo thought was, 'I am no longer part of the lower class, I have made it to middle class citizenship'.

The buildings were nothing special and reminded Azemo of apartments except for how they seemed to be sculpted into some sort of metal box. Windows jutted out at odd angles but somehow everything seemed to look elegant and well thought out.

'I must be close.' Azemo looked at the badge and saw that it wanted him to turn into a small alley and after the alley he would be twenty steps from his home. Without hesitating Azemo headed into the dark alley.

After a few steps into the corridor a group of people stepped out, two behind him and four in front of him. If Azemo had to describe them he would have called them common thugs. They looked mean and their clothes did nothing to help them.

Azemo did not want to judge them by their looks, but he was not perfect and when he saw the classic bad guy look his guard went up. He reached into the room bag and grasped Shining Starlight.

The group that stopped him saw a plain looking human holding a bag so they did not think for a second before attacking. No talking, no signals, just violence.

As Azemo saw the speedy approach of a scrawny man he waited and suddenly swung out with his spear. The spear tip moved fluidly and perfectly carved out a chunk of flesh from the man's neck, the man fell and did not get back up.

The rest of the gang saw the quick death of one of their members and began taking out various weapons.

All Azemo did to prepare was to close his eyes, gathering his fighting spirit, it had been a while since he had last been in a fight.

As the gang saw Azemo's eyes close they took it as a sign of defeat and charged. Unfortunately for them the alley they had chosen for their ambush only would allow for two people to attack at a time.

This time a woman with a saw and a man with a steel pipe attacked. The man swung his pipe and still Azemo's eyes remained closed. The man smiled, his victory assured.

Suddenly a bloody spear tip was in his face, so fast that he did not have time to blink. In a split second the pipe fell to the ground as its user collapsed in a puddle of his own blood.

The woman saw the fall of her companion but there was no time to turn back and she brandished her saw, steeling herself.

She fared a little better than the man, forcing Azemo to block her attack with the spear head. As Azemo parried a grey energy gathered around him rushing into his next attack. Azemo swung the back end of the spear into the side of the woman's head after pushing her saw away with his spear tip. The (skill) Retaliate infused blow crushed the woman's skull in one hit and her body was flung into the wall.

As her body hit the wall Azemo sensed danger behind him. It seemed that the two tasked with stopping his retreat finally had joined the fray.

Normally this attack would not have warranted much of Azemo's attention as he could just teleport Ceravin into his enemy, but he had worked that day and his mana was rather low.

Because he had just attacked with the butt of his spear the blade was facing backwards and Azemo dropped to a knee stabbing backwards impaling the two attackers in one strike.

As their blood covered Azemo's back Azemo looked up at the final gang member. The last one standing was a thin woman with a cutlass. As she looked at Azemo she saw the devil's incarnate.

The look Azemo gave allowed his glowing green eyes to illuminate the blood red wings he had created from the spurting blood of her companions'.

Without pausing the woman dropped her cutlass and did what any sane person would do, she ran.

Azemo shook the blood off of his spear before turning his attention to the woman. This was a simulation so his threshold for killing people was much lower. No one could know of his prowess.

The woman looked back and saw that Azemo was not chasing her and breathed a sigh of relief. Before the sigh was finished the woman looked down in surprise. A spear was sticking out of her midsection. She had enough time to turn around and saw that Azemo was balancing on the spear stuck through her.

(technique) Starfall had been more than enough to catch the woman and she died without a sign of struggle.

Azemo quickly left the alley leaving a horrific scene of carnage.

The officers who were sent to the alley found six mangled bodies and walls painted in blood.

"A dark god has entered our city."