Today, Mount Targon welcomed a group of unwelcome Summit people.
They were tall and taciturn. The paths leading up the mountain, perilous even for ordinary people and Transcendents, seemed no more dangerous beneath their feet than garden paths.
As for the Heavenly Realm's radiance, which took a strong will to endure, it felt to them like nothing more than the ordinary afternoon sun: a little hot, but nothing more.
This expedition of Summit people, assembled by Karya, set out from the headwaters of the Thousand Rivers Diversion Project and quickly began climbing along Mount Targon's eastern foothills. The Laquor people who received word along the way tried every means to stop them, but were helpless against the group.
For one thing, these people were too strong. For another, most of the Laquor people's elite forces had fallen at Nareumajel. The victory brought by the powerful gravity field had convinced the Laquor people that the Sun Disc was reliable, and inevitably made them complacent. So when the powerful gravity field failed, the Rah-Hok guards gathered at Nareumajel were wiped out.
If these people were allowed to retreat safely to Mount Targon, then with the various temples, Stone Vortices, altars, and star dials on the mountain to draw upon, the Transcendents could unleash power far beyond their own. In that case, even if the Thousand Gods Legion fully revived, Karya wouldn't be confident of getting them to the summit.
But now, things were different.
The victory at Nareumajel had greatly weakened the Laquor people's mid- and high-level forces. Without enough people, even though the Laquor people had built countless defensive structures along the climbing route over the past several thousand years, the way ahead was still clear for Karya.
Below the snowline, the Summit people met no resistance worth mentioning. At that