Time passed, second by second, and Taiyang changed position several times.
Human-made machines appeared in the sky and over the ocean.
Some of the factions were quite far from this land and these waters. By rights, they should not have been able to arrive so quickly.
But they happened to have bases nearby.
And watchdogs of questionable loyalty guarding the gates for them.
There was movement not only at the ocean's edge, but on land as well.
This involved an alien. Whether or not things went as far as anyone feared, everyone had to make their position clear. They could not skip the necessary show of force.
When the silhouettes of enormous steel constructs appeared in the distance, Meng Chuan returned from his faraway thoughts and looked toward machines he had only seen in photographs in his "past life."
He had to admit that technology had its merits, whether ordinary or advanced.
In this world, behemoths like these had been built entirely by mortals.
Yet in a head-on clash, they could crush the vast majority of lower-level cultivators.
Of course, if lower-level extraordinary beings really found themselves in that position, they probably would not lose their minds and charge straight at those iron monsters.
Individuals had advantages of their own, such as slipping in to strike at a leader or influencing minds.
As long as extraordinary individuals played to their strengths, even the largest technological construct on this planet was just a lump of iron.
At the early stage, though, technology truly was a shortcut that let mortals stand shoulder to shoulder with the extraordinary and quickly wield no less destructive power.
Of course, by the middle and late stages, technological development might not outpace cultivation at the same level.
This, too, was a great road reaching to the heavens.