Runic Technology, Sweeping Aside All Resistance

Two hours later.

Inside the command airship of the Third Guard Station's First Regiment, First Battalion, Battalion Commander Xu Chen stood beside the command table, his gaze resting on a tactical map he had studied countless times.

The second defensive line south of Windrider Island was marked on the map with a thick dark-red line that wound along the mountain contours. Symbols marking heavy-fire positions appeared at intervals. His deputy crouched by the corner of the table, pointing just above a spot labeled "suspected weak point" in the middle of the line, speaking in a low voice.

"If we charge straight at it..."

The deputy had barely begun.

Suddenly, golden light streamed through the porthole, illuminating the entire cabin with an indescribable sense of weight.

Xu Chen instinctively turned his head and looked toward the light.

Through the porthole, he saw an enormous island suspended beneath the clouds, like a fortress carved whole from a mountain, turned upside down, and raised into the sky.

Its base was a vast, irregular platform of rock, its jagged edges like broken cliffs. Dark-gray strata lay exposed along the fractured face, and densely packed rune foundations were embedded in the crevices, holding the floating island between heaven and earth.

Atop the platform, a gray-white stone fortress followed its contours. Its outer walls were built from massive blocks of deep-sea granite. The main tower rose into the clouds, its shaft an eight-sided prism with a vertical band of glowing runes set into each face. Countless tiny points of light cycled up and down fixed paths across its surface.

Above the tower, the radiance of Divine Arts spread steadily outward. The resulting net covered more than a hundred miles of airspace, shutting everything beyond it out. Even starlight seemed to pass through an invisible filter.

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